The present invention relates to a process for producing formed bodies with improved isotropic properties, high resistance to oxidation and corrosion, great hardness and firmness, good mechanical tooling quality and high resistance to abrasion, made of elemental metals, or a combination of at least two metals, or a combination of one or more metals with one or several metalloids and/or one or more non-metallic elements, in which the initial materials in metallic form or in form of hard substances or mixtures thereof have been ground to fine amorphous powders in a high-energy ball mill. The powders are subsequently shaped into a formed body by pressing, sintering or hot-pressing at a higher temperature.
In the past, various techniques have been employed to make amorphous products. For example, ribbons of amorphous alloys have been made by rapid quenching of molten liquid alloys. In another technique for producing amorphous products, wires have been made of amorphous NiZr from 1 .mu.m-thick elemental layers, layered one on top of the other, which were twisted around each other, and which were then mechanically deformed in accordance with swaging and wire drawing technology, by repeated drawing and hammering in a steel casing which was subsequently removed. By mechanical deformation of the wound nickel and zirconium foils and subsequent heat treating at 573.degree. K. in an argon atmosphere (1 to 250 hours) the transition from the crystalline state to the amorphous state was accomplished by rapid diffusion of the nickel. See, L. Schulz, "Preparation of Thick Amorphous Metals by Jelly Roll Technique and Rapid Diffusion", Amorphous Metals and Nonequilibrium Processing, June 5 to 8, 1984, Strasbourg, France. Schulz also discloses the formation of a composite NiZr sheet by rolling technology. Schulz discloses that the sheet was not completely amorphous, and suggests that further deformation to form thinner layers would be needed.
The previously known procedures for producing bodies out of amorphous materials have the disadvantage that the transition from the crystalline to the amorphous state of the usable materials is often incomplete or achieved, if at all, only by very complicated processing.
It has also been disclosed that binary intermetallic compounds or, respectively, binary alloys in amorphous pulverized form were obtained by extensive pulverization of Ni and Nb powders, or Y and Co powders, or Gd and Co powders, or Nb and Sn powders, or Ni and Ti powders in a high energy ball mill (mechanical alloying), for instance Ni.sub.60 Nb.sub.40 or yttrium-cobalt compounds or gadolinium-cobalt compounds or Nb.sub.3 Sn (Koch et al, Applied Physics Letters, Volume 43 (11), of December 1983, pp 1017 to 1019) or NiTi (R. B. Schwarz, "Amorphization of Ni-Ti Alloys by Mechanical Alloying", Fifth International Conference on Rapidly Quenched Metals, Abstracts, Wuerzburg, 3 to 7 September 1984, p. K 71), but the formation of the amorphous alloy powders were observed only in the few cited instances. Ni.sub.60 Nb.sub.40, for instance, was milled for 14 hours in the presence of air whereby the product material showed a low, broad exothermic crystallization peak in relation to the corresponding peaks on Ni.sub.60 Nb.sub.40 materials which were produced in amorphous form by a different method. In order to minimize oxygen content, Koch et al disclosed that the powders can be loaded in a dry box containing helium. Schwarz discloses ball milling under a high purity nitrogen atmosphere. The production of formed bodies with improved isotropic properties was not addressed by these publications.